I admit I'm a label junkie. But this is not conventional label worship, of the Gucci Gs or the interlinked Cs of Chanel, as you might witness at the annual Modern Luxury Conference in Dubai next month. Sponsored by one of the world's largest construction firms, this is where you pretend peak oil and climate change are someone else's nightmare. Instead, my label thing is for logos and symbols that demonstrate the ecological footprint of what you're about to buy. They also give me the opportunity to express a preference for eco-friendly and/or fair-trade goods, in the hope that the great marketing gods are taking notes and will stop pushing quilted, bleached toilet tissue from virgin forests on to stupid consumers.

My consumerist life should be plain sailing - after all, there are plenty of these labels around. You can choose your pesticide-free vegetables from 10 different UK organic certifying bodies, buy cruelty-free eggs, cereal that's been grown in butterfly-friendly fields or jumpers free from toxic-sheep dip, all by looking at the logos. For timber products from a sustainable source, you need only look for the Forestry Stewardship Council's mark and even corporations, usually marked out as ethically dubious are covering their products in helpful signs these days. The best example comes from Unilever, the UK's biggest fish producer, which set up the Marine Stewardship Council in association with WWF, to certify sustainable fish stocks.

The main drawback, however, is that some schemes are so confusing their labels are about as much use as a chocolate teapot - such as the logos denoting recyclable plastics. These sport a small triangle with a number from 1-7 which spells out the type of plastic. But it's not that straightforward. Only number 1, polyethylene glycol terephthalate (Pet) is regularly recycled. You can pretty much forget buying the others.

Plastics labelling could therefore learn something from the straightforward energy ratings given to white goods. These have also helped to boost the market for A-grade appliances, which are increasingly energy efficient. What's not to like? Well, try asking the WTO because, shockingly, ahead of December trade talks, there's a move to outlaw energy ratings for white goods (lobby against this at www.foe.org.uk). Led by South Korea, a number of large white-goods manufacturers argue that because it costs more to produce to A-rating standards, energy-efficiency labels are actually a barrier to that most holy enshrined WTO principal: free trade.

While the WTO wrangles with whether to prioritise free trade ahead of climate-change emissions yet again, my enthusiasm for labelling grows. In fact, I'd even like our houses to come with a big, swinging label denoting their energy efficiency. Raising the ratings of a house to the 'very good' standard devised by the BRE (www.bre.co.uk) for example, would reduce CO2 emissions of the average home by 32 per cent, and substantially reduce energy bills. Yet more reason to join me in some label loving.